If you haven't heard, light wind foiling is the happening thing. It will really take off within a year or so for windsurfers. I'm getting mine this weekend to get started. Here's Robbie's take on foiling.

Foiling is an expensive proposition as full carbon foils go for 2K and the foil boards go for the same amount. No doubt that the companies putting out the gear want to squeeze us of our retirement savings. I'm getting the Slingshot foil ( titanium mast with carbon wings) for a bit over 1K. Getting a powerbox adapter plate so that I can use my 110L Firemove (75 cm wide) to practice on. Hopefully my finbox will survive while I'm in the learning phase. Stuff will surely get better the next couple of years as a lot of R&D is happening..not sure if prices will come down with more competition. BTW, right now windsurf foils are hard to get as there is a backlog on orders.

It's interesting to watch the marketing because much of the development of the technology has been pioneered here in the Bay area, Started with foils for kites, and Johnny Heineken working with Mike Zajicek. Then a small crew at Berkeley--Anders, Lynn, Steve Sylvester, and Mike Percey, began working with Horue and Zajicek foils. Then F4 (Chris Radkowski and Al Mirel) started building foils. We are now, according to Chris, at about a fifth generation. It's harder than it looks. Several of the pros, including Antoine Albeau and Jesper Vesterstroem have come to Berkeley to work with Steve Sylvester. And Mike Percey won the Classic, the long distance race for windsurfing on a foil this year. Here's a couple of thoughts:

1. At least initially, you need a wide board. It has been much easier for folks to learn using old formula boards than wide slalom boards. The width gives you planing surface to get the board off the water and makes balancing dramatically easier.

2. Neil Pryde has developed a complete unit, board foil and sail, using the F4 latest design. Chris tells me that the sail is pretty cool. They may be pointing towards proposing this as an Olympic design for the next Olympics.

3. Prices for less high tech foils are definitely coming down. 101 Surfsport has a design that is made of cheaper materials and is slower and supposedly much easier to learn with. There are also options for how long the mast (the fin-like attachment between the board and the foil) is. Lower is not as scary--but you bump into wave tops and come off a foil more often.

4. The higher tech foils are faster and more predictable. You want to mast to be as stiff as possible, Softer masts load up and then release the force, making the foil unpredictable and hard to handle. The new F4 mast and the Zajicek masts are both stiff and fast.

5. In the hands of talent, these things can go very fast. Antoine has gone over 35 miles and hour, Jesper is smoking fast, and Steve, Mike, Anders and Xavier of the Bay area racing fleet are all really quick. I get pretty scared at 20 mph. There are plenty of videos of people doing amazing tricks on foils that are built for that, not for speed.

There are various board manufacturers starting to introduce products. As usual, the custom makers are making better, lighter products--but they are not for learning.

I'm looking forward to reading your exploits foiling with you 110 liter Firemove. I think this is pretty cool and am looking forward to trying it myself. Plus it might be a good way to use a board that I don't use, a Naish 130 liter Freewide that with a foil kit might a useable beginner foil board. In any event foils certainly appear to be a great way to expand the sailing season and you wouldn't have to wait until 3:00 pm during the prime season for the better wind. I've been looking at the many sites now offering foils and foil boards, but it doesn't appear the Naish site has them up yet. Robbie's video looks pretty cool, but with typical Naish aplomb Robbie sails easily with one hand!!! The guy is amazing!!!

You have to ask whether it would be best to use a board design that initiates foil planing in the footstraps like Naish's design, or an older windsurfing design where you have to move back to get into the straps. I'm thinking that its more about the triad relationship between the mast track location, the footstrap positions, and the foil location. That's more favorable to the Naish view of things.

I've never tried foiling, but from what I can tell, it's all about the balance of everything. I don't see folks foiling leaning hard out against the sail. There's not a lot of outward extension in what I'm seeing. It's a closer relationship with the sail, especially in lighter winds.

I have to admit, there are a lot of kiters on foils these days. It's the guys with the high aspect elliptical kites that are truly incredible in their upwind angles, and they are awesomely quick off the wind. They really stand out, even in the regular kite-foil scene.

- Under what conditions would windsurf foiling be preferred over standard windsurfing for the recreational (non-pro, non-racer) windsurfer? It seems like foiling would be more fun in the lighter winds (under 20mph wind speed) due to efficiency, early planing, smooth flying type of ride. Over 20mph, standard gear gets up on a plane early enough, has plenty of speed, and is more stable.

- How bad are crashes on a foiling windsurfing? Imagine flying along on a foiling windsurfer with a relatively tall foil mast, and then hitting some submerged obstruction, like a kelp stalk, at full speed. Seems like the nose would pitch down hard and stuff, resulting in a violent in-strap catapult.

- Weeds: In a place with some amount of sea-grass type weeds, it seems like the foil would pick up the weeds fairly quickly, compromising lift and increasing drag to a point where it wouldn't work well.

I'm thinking that under arthritic conditions foiling might be the better choice
no matter what the wind speed.

-Craig

prevett wrote:

Questions:

- Under what conditions would windsurf foiling be preferred over standard windsurfing for the recreational (non-pro, non-racer) windsurfer? It seems like foiling would be more fun in the lighter winds (under 20mph wind speed) due to efficiency, early planing, smooth flying type of ride. Over 20mph, standard gear gets up on a plane early enough, has plenty of speed, and is more stable.
.

My plan (if I don't kill myself while learning), is to expand my choices as I like to and have the boards for bump&jump, wave, slalom, freestyle, course, and longboarding. A lot of us are old geezers now but still want that stoke factor and are intrigued by foil windsurfing.
My foil arrives in a couple of days and I'll begin with baby steps using smaller masts of varying sizes (15,24,30) before I use the 36" mast that comes with the foil.

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